AVs Need National Standard, Says Addison Lee – TU Automotive

A private hire firm has called for standardization of regulation across all local authorities to ensure safety in future robo-taxi services. The call came in an interview with TU-Automotive by Andrew Wescott, head of regulatory and external affairs at Addison Lee, as he revealed the company's finding from the MERGE Greenwich project that carried out simulated autonomous vehicle ride-sharing trials in south-east London and sought consumer opinion. Wescott said the project showed that a set of national standards for private hire operators should be introduced across the UK and a national database of licensed private hire drivers to be set up. He said: "There are some authorities that are, let's say, a bit freer in licensing and others that are a bit stricter." While admitting several trials of this type are currently being staged in the UK, he said: "The important thing for us is there's a national approach that is then implemented at a local level. Because otherwise you might get some challenges in terms of the way you operate and also the way in which the transport system itself works. We're not going to go overnight from manual to autonomous, there'll be a staged process. Also, there'll be a need to integrate that with existing transport networks. That needs that level of national structure first."